We're a husband and wife design team located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. We draw inspiration from nature around us, Colonial Craftsmanship, and Danish Modern/MCM influences to create a colorful fusion we call Virginia Modern.

Yancey and I were thrifting again - for Christmas this time - at our favorite shop, looking for vintage vinyl records and a record holder, some retro costume jewelry and other gifts for under the tree, when we bumped into a KILLER Mid-Century Danish Modern table and chair set, with sideboard(aka console, buffet, credenza - depending on use). Maybe Yancey will share the story and pictures soon...

Danish Modern furniture is a topic unto itself, but for starters, the antique store find got us both all hot and bothered about consoles and danish modern. Here are some design muses I found. Hope you enjoy! Braxton

Dig the Atomic motif on wicked glass fronts!

Very clean and light on its feet. Beautiful wood.

Great floating case on Jetsonian tapered legs

Straightforward case with modern hardware

Love the sliding panel fronts. Mix of wood veneer and metal.

Small scale console, light on its feet with great louvered front treatment

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Yancey and I are thrifting for antiques one day and, having discussed how cool ashtrays potentially would be as a style element in a room, stumble upon a stylish green beauty that happened to match our vintage Naugahide rocking chair we thrifted from Goodwill for $30. SOLD!

Brought the ashtray home and put it inside the $5 Goodwill retro bookcase headboard we were using as a console, and SHA-ZAM! Instantly we are ashtray fans! By the way, ashtrays we’ve found are pretty inexpensive, in the $3-5 dollar range = affordable chic!

We found a second one in the attic, given to us by my Grandma – a disastrous mottled brown square with old coins glued onto the surface (that I loved as a kid). Added that to a styled tabletop and it quietly rocked! Now, we are one-ashtray-shy-of-being-a -collector. We are on the prowl for more…

Trouble is, what to do with them, functionally? Sure, these mid-century, mostly ceramic masterpieces do rock a table styling, but can they do anything? Before we take a stab at re-functioning ashtrays. Here are some cool pics!

Growing up in the 60s there were some great, now classic, toys that were popular. Most are still on the shelves today.

It was probably the golden age of advertising, as Mad Men tell us, but also the golden age of toys. Combine the two, and our new facination with the Television Set, and kids of the 50s and 60s saw a LOT of commercials selling toys for Christmas.

I recall waking up early on Saturday mornings to fix myself some cinnaman toast or cereal, set up the TV trays and watch cartoons with my brothers! We were little princes of suburbia. We ruled TVland!

Leading up to Christmas Day in the burbs, my brothers and I would sift thru the Sears Wish Book, the bible of Christmas for kids of the day, and make a list of things we HAD to have for Christmas. Madison Avenue commercials of course had an impact.

Since it's almost Christmas, I've put together a retro Mid-Century look at some classic toys, vintage designs, innovations, packaging and fonts of the day. Hope you enjoy the time capsule!

We'll be taking a blog-holiday for a few days until Jan 1. Hope you have a fantastic holiday and wishing you a great New Year with kith and kin :). Thanks for visiting! Shine On! Braxton

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Loved my matchbox collection. Great open ended toy. Oriental carpet makes a great freeway!Left Click to ZOOM. Left Click again to ZOOM the ZOOM

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Classic!

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Great travel game. Probably kept my parents sane on the long trip to VA Beach...

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Original Barbie. Not a personal fav, but pretty HOT in retrospect : )

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The original commercial!

Loved G.I. Joe! Great adventures with brother Jay and his fighting men! Democracy was safe while Joe was fighting for us.

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Classic Toy from gumball type machines- came in many sizes. Featured in ToyStory3 recently...

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Fun to play with but not a personal fav. Classic though.

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Another classic. A bitch to fix when tangled up. Never the same after that. Crimped it. Damn.

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Many happy hours here...

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Excellent toy! Great Innovation. Wow. Still a winner today.

Classic - as in Yule...not that I have a log...(Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation)

Sold modern versions of this in our family's toy shop Kringles for years.

Great rainy day toy. A quiet toy- dig the modern design muse! Hmmmm

Cool toy. By the time I had one of these beauties they had plastic heads. His friends, in my collection were Frankie Frank and Mr. Mustard.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

I love Mid-Century lamps! Great for feeding the design mojo for ModHome.

When Yancey and I go antique thrifting--that's not to say we are antique people that are thrifting, but lovely youthful people thrifting for antiques :), we are always on the look for 40's, 50's, and 60's lamps and other accessories that are cool, colorful and unusual.

There are some pretty heart stoppingly UGLY designs from that day, some of which would really set up a room as Mid-Century... But there are a lot of beautiful lamps as well. Personally I dig the unusual ones.

Here's a sampling of some designs I found recently on the Web. Some are beautiful, like the Merano Glass lamp bases, some unusual and some fairly humble designs.